ChongLy ‘Scott’ Thao, a naturalised US citizen, was arrested at gunpoint in January and led outside in his underwear in freezing conditions
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenAssociated PressPublished: 7:57am, 14 Apr 2026A Minnesota county is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man by federal officers that was captured on video as a potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials said on Monday.
“There are many facts we don’t know yet, but there’s one that we do know. And that is that Mr Thao is and has been an American citizen. There’s not a dispute over that,” Fletcher said. “There’s no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around.”
The sheriff continued: “Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly, trying to determine what they can tell them?”
DHS, which oversees ICE, has refused so far to cooperate with Ramsey County, or with other state and local investigations into the killings by federal officers of two US citizens in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
